Lon McCallister

Birthday: April 17, 1923 in Los Angeles, California, USA

Birth Name: Herbert Alonzo McCallister Jr.

Height: 168 cm

Boyish Lon McCallister started his career as a teenage bit actor in such wholesome, folksy tales as Les aventures de Tom Sawyer (1938) and Judge Hardy's Children (1938). As an adult, he found the ...Show More

Boyish Lon McCallister started his career as a teenage bit actor in such wholesome, folksy tales as Les aventures de Tom Sawyer (1938) and Judge Hardy's Children (1938). As an adult, he found the strength of his career riding on that same homespun sentiment.Lon McCallister was born Herbert Alonzo McCallister, Jr. in Los Angeles on April 17, 1923, but was almost immediately called "Buddy" to those closest to him. He attended high school at Marken Professional School, a training ground for Hollywood hopefuls, and eventually managed to secure unbilled parts, starting with the plush Norma Shearer-Leslie Howard film vehicle Roméo et Juliette (1936).Lon became close friends with the film's director, George Cukor, and attributed his biggest break to Cukor when he earned a supporting role as a pilot in Winged Victory (1944) after toiling in obscurity for nearly six years. Lon also stood out in the film Le cabaret des étoiles (1943), as the unassuming soldier who falls for canteen hostess Marjorie Riordan, and in the warm and winning horse-racing tale Home in Indiana (1944), opposite rising star Jeanne Crain.Lon's WWII induction into the Army put a direct hit on his career momentum, but he managed to recover and pick up where he left off. For starters, Lon won a solid role in the melodramatic thriller La maison rouge (1947), starring Edward G. Robinson and Judith Anderson. The film also co-starred Allene Roberts, who became a lifelong friend.Although he starred in the down-home comedy romance Bagarre pour une blonde (1948), along with June Haver, the movie is barely remembered today except for featuring an unbilled Marilyn Monroe rowing a canoe. Lead roles for Lon in the serviceable adventures The Story of Seabiscuit (1949) with Shirley Temple, The Big Cat (1949), The Boy from Indiana (1950) and Montana Territory (1952) also came and went.Lon ended his film career with the "B" Korean War drama Combat Squad (1953). Some reports state he lost interest and sought satisfaction elsewhere; others claim that his perennially boyish good looks and diminutive stature hurt his adult career (although it did not seem to hurt the equally short and youthful-looking Alan Ladd). In any event, Lon quit the business in the late 1950s and pursued lucrative ventures in real estate and property investment.Never married, Lon had an off-and-on romantic relationship with fellow actor William Eythe until Eythe's untimely death in 1957. Having been in declining health for some time, he was living in the Lake Tahoe area, where he had recently bought some property, when he died on June 11, 2005, of congestive heart failure. The 82-year-old McCallister was survived by his brother Lynn and sister Kathleen. Hide